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Kenneth Fish, PhD Promoted to Associate Professor of Psychiatry

Congratulations to Kenneth Fish, PhD on his promotion to the rank of associate professor of psychiatry by the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.  

Dr. Fish received his PhD in molecular microbiology and immunology from the Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) in 1998.  He obtained postdoctoral training at OHSU and The Scripps Research Institute, and was a member of the Scripps Department of Neuropharmacology faculty prior to his recruitment as an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry by the University of Pittsburgh in 2005.

A nationally and internationally recognized leader in quantitative fluorescence microscopy, Dr. Fish has used this sophisticated approach to further develop research efforts in such complex behavioral health disorders as schizophrenia. He has served as the Principal Investigator for numerous research grants throughout his career including two NARSAD Young Investigator Awards, a career development award, a UPMC Medical Research Fund Award, an R21 and an R01. Currently he is the Principal Investigator of an R01 funded by the National Institute of Mental Health examining chandelier cell inputs to pyramidal neurons in schizophrenia and development, and the Co-Principal investigator for the grant ?Perisomatic Innervation of Dentate Granule Neurons in Human Epileptic Hippocampus? funded by the Clinical and Translational Science Institute and the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Fish is actively involved with the Silvio O. Conte Center for Translational Mental Health Research, serving as a Co-Investigator and the Director of Project 2 ? Morphological Alterations of Cortical Layer 3 Pyramidal Cells in Schizophrenia. In addition, he is a Co-Investigator of three other federally-funded R01s and another grant funded by the Veterans Administration. Dr. Fish has widely disseminated findings from his research.  He serves as the first or senior author for 16 of 45 peer-reviewed journal articles that have appeared in leading scientific journals including Biological Psychiatry, Molecular Psychiatry, and the American Journal of Psychiatry.  Dr. Fish has presented his research findings at scientific meetings throughout the US and Mexico, and in 2014 was presented with the Society of Biological Psychiatry?s Top Poster Award for Basic Research.

In addition to his extensive research activities, Dr. Fish is highly regarded for his teaching and mentorship of students, trainees and early-career scientists, and for his service to the scientific community.  He is currently active within the Medical Scientist Training Program and the Physician Scientist Training Program as well as training efforts within the Translational Neuroscience Program, and the Center for Neuroscience at the University of Pittsburgh (CNUP).  He presently mentors numerous undergraduate and graduate students, and is a member of the thesis committee for Dibyadeep Datta and of the advisory committees for four other graduate students.  Though much of Dr. Fish?s educational contributions involve mentoring, he also regularly lectures and teaches courses and seminars.  Dr. Fish is a member of the Admissions Committee for the Graduate Training Program in the CNUP and serves as the Associate Director of the Department of Psychiatry?s NeuroStereology Imaging Facility where he teaches the basic principles of microscopy and equipment use. He also regularly reviews for several prominent journals in the field (Neuron, PLos One, and the Journal of Neuroscience) and has reviewed grants for the NIH and the National Science Foundation.